Low-Budget Households in the Conditions of Digitalization in US Regions

The digitalization of the economy and society of the highly developed countries, along with technological improvements in production and social relations, introduces a number of significant problems associated with the widening income gap and the flow of the economically active population from the knowledge economy to the “traditional activity” sectors. The subjective expression of this process in the 21st century Low Budget Families, an increase in the share of which has been observed in the United States during the period of increased digitalization and reindustrialization, starting in 2010. The growth trend of Low Budget Families in the United States has an intra-country spatial nature, quantitatively and qualitatively different both at the level of subregions and individual states of the country. The regional aspects of the relationship between the growth of the share of Low Budget Families, depending on the level of digitalization of the economy and society, reflected through the corresponding “complex index”, considered in the article, find empirical confirmation, generally characterized by a direct dependence and causality associated with the release of an increasingly significant number of labor potential from the advanced sectors of the economy. The problem of the flow of economically active citizens, who represent the basis of Low Budget Families in which the level of official income, taxes, consumption and savings is declining, is being solved differently in different US states. Based on a comparison of the criteria for identifying Low Budget Families, a priority for the authorities of various regions of the country, a general “spatial picture” of polarization of subregions and states is formed based on the share of Low Budget Families, depending on the level of digitalization and the choice of directions of state regional policy to smooth out the negative problems of inequality and hidden employment, caused by the digital transformation of social relations.